Ipswich-born siblings prepare for fundraising cross-country bike ride

Friday

Feb 20, 2009 at 12:01 AMFeb 20, 2009 at 8:03 PM

Big Bend National Park. The large expanse of open space along the Rio Grande in southern Texas is a pull for Sarah and Patrick Keenan, the daughter and son of Ipswich Police Chief Gavin Keenan. Both are Ipswich High graduates, both have a newfound passion for cycling and both are looking to help organizations in need.

Joshua Boyd

Big Bend National Park. The large expanse of open space along the Rio Grande in southern Texas is a pull for Sarah and Patrick Keenan.

Both are Ipswich High graduates, both have a newfound passion for cycling, and both are looking to help organizations in need.

So they will cycle to Big Bend National Park, but it will just be a stop along the way between their starting point at San Diego, Calif., in March and their destination, St. Augustine, Fla., “hopefully” 10 weeks later.

“It is really desolate, and me and Patrick’s friend David will be down there as car support for us,” said 27-year-old Sarah, about that major detour from the otherwise straight route mostly paralleling U.S. Interstate 10.

“[Big Bend] just seems like the opposite end of the spectrum from New York City,” said Patrick, who’s 24. “The guy who sold me my bike totally recommended it. It is a climate I have no experience with - just a humongous sky and the hills and the river. It should be really cool.”

Patrick knows that the Community Cycling Center of Portland (Oregon.), in the city he now calls home, will certainly appreciate that he is raising money and awareness for that organization. The CCC of Portland “broadens access to bicycling and its benefits through hands-on programs, volunteer projects and a neighborhood bike shop,” according to its Web site, www.communitycyclingcenter.org.

His big sister will also receive many thanks from the folks at The Network/La Red (TNLR), a Boston-based non-profit organization “dedicated to ending abuse in lesbian, bisexual women’s and transgender (LBT) communities,” Sarah wrote in a news release announcing her fundraising effort.

The cause is meaningful for Sarah, who describes herself as a lesbian; she says there definitely is abuse in those communities. She pointed out that people who fall into the LBT orientation are often turned away from “mainstream” abuse shelters because of their sexual orientation.

The ride itself and the idea of raising money for non-profit organizations was Sarah’s, but she got inspiration for the trip from a friend, Stephanie Daly.

“It was maybe in May, when I was having dinner with my girlfriend, Jessica Green, and her roommate [Daly],” Sarah recalled “[Daly] had a bike tattoo, and she said it was because she rode a bike across the country. So I said, I’m going to do a bike ride and do it to benefit an organization.”

Three thousand miles away, Patrick got a ring on his phone from his sister. From that time last year to now, bicycling has become a major part of Patrick’s life.

“[The ride] excites me. I’m super-pumped up all the time,” he said. “It is going to be super-challenging, from both the physical aspects of it and the lack of comfort aspect.

“This is also the first thing that Sarah’s ever asked me to do, just me and her,” he added. “We haven’t really done too many things together, especially in our later years. We live separate lives; we’ve never lived in the same city [since leaving Ipswich], except for one year in Boston. We keep in touch on the phone, but we’ve never done an adventure together.”

Getting to the details

It wasn’t immediately obvious to Sarah that her brother would be joining her on the trek, but once the idea came to her, it seemed like the obvious choice.

“Originally I was wondering, ‘Am I doing this by myself?’ Just before October, I was telling him I was doing this, and I asked him if he wanted to do it with me, and he said, ‘Yes,’” Sarah said. “It’s good, because some of my weaknesses are his strengths. He told me, ‘I’m taking care of maintenance of the bikes.’”

“We both have to cook … set up camp. I like her being the navigator; I’m just into bikes and how they work and the maintenance of bikes,” Patrick said.

Indeed, Sarah’s job was to line up a route, and she did that with the help of Adventure Cycling Association (www.adventurecycling.org), which lists routes and sells maps on its Web site. San Diego to St. Augustine is its “Southern Tier” transcontinental option.

To keep down costs, the pair expects to camp their way across the country, staying with friends when they visit some cities, like Austin and New Orleans. As a break from the cycling trip, Patrick the musician is hoping to get in some playing time with friends in music-centric Austin.

With a solid plan and their philanthropy in the causes about which they care the most, it’s time to concentrate on preparation. Sarah has been working out at the Ipswich Family YMCA, spinning the stationary bikes and also taking her cycle many miles per day. For convenience purposes, she and Patrick have the same bicycle for the ride: the Surly Long Haul Trucker.

“If something breaks, we will still have one example of how it’s supposed to work,” said Patrick.

He has been sticking to a good, solid fitness regimen himself.

“I go to the gym five days a week with a friend of mine, just for muscle tone, and I do yoga one day a week,” he said. “I also ride anywhere from 15-40 miles a day. I don’t want to overdo it - I’m trying to follow other people’s models on how to train, which is to throw in some light days.”

There won’t be many light days on the open roads of these United States of America, but for a brother and sister from Ipswich, who will be reconnecting as family, they will be good days.

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